


who’s got any time for growing up?

by scarlettroses



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Gunshot Wounds, Hospitals, M/M, Post-Canon, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:40:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22763377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarlettroses/pseuds/scarlettroses
Summary: it’s 1917 and the world is wrapped up in the great war. ten years ago, davey and jack left new york and went their separate ways.a field hospital in france is the worst possible place to reunite.
Relationships: David Jacobs/Jack Kelly
Comments: 11
Kudos: 98





	who’s got any time for growing up?

**Author's Note:**

> from the prompt: "two lovers have been fighting to reunite for years. when they finally make it to each other, one is dying." so basically this isn’t my fault and an anon forced me to do it, blame them not me!
> 
> posted on tumblr a while ago, liked it enough to post over here too!

When Davey sees Jack again for the first time in years, he doesn’t even recognize him.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a whole ten years since Davey moved to Boston for school, and since Jack finally hopped on a train to Santa Fe. They went their separate ways, as even the best of friends or closest of lovers tend to eventually do. They meant to keep in touch— they really did— but none of the letters Davey wrote ever made it to Jack, or even to the mailbox for that matter.

He told himself it was because he didn’t know Jack’s new address, but maybe he was simply too heartbroken to bother reaching out.

_“I’ll be home every summer, and it’s just for four years. If you think about it, that’s not even very long.”_

_Jack had just sighed and stared down at the train ticket in his hands. It had been hard enough, Davey doing his undergraduate’s degree, here in New York. They never seemed to have any time for each other, and it was getting harder and harder to keep their relationship a secret. Now, with Davey headed all the way to Boston to go to medical school, things were bound to be even worse._

_“So if you wanna go away and live your dream, it’s fine, but when I wanna do it, I’m the bad guy?” The note of bitterness in Jack’s voice had seemed insincere, as if he couldn’t bring himself to actually be mad. “Maybe I’ll only go for four years, then. We’ll both come back to New York and find each other. If we write enough letters, maybe it’ll be like we were never even apart.”_

_Davey had just forced himself to laugh softly, while leaning into Jack’s side to try and revel in every moment, as surely it’ll be the last time they hold each other like this._

_“Yeah, you’re right.” A lie. “We’ll see each other again, I’m sure.” Another lie. “I’ll love you forever, darling.” Nothing but the truth._

The last place Davey expects to run into Jack is in a military hospital in France, in the midst of the Great War.

They hadn’t thought the war was going to be this long. When Davey had volunteered to go overseas as an army doctor, fairly early on in the war, the general consensus was that it surely wouldn’t last more than a few months. Now it’s 1917– Davey hasn’t seen his family in two years and the fighting just keeps barreling on. Every day, there’s a constant stream of young soldiers being carted in from the front lines with horrific injuries, and every day Davey has to put on a brave face and try to save their lives.

Jack isn’t the first of the newsies to come in— Davey has seen a handful of old friends and it’s bittersweet every time. The reunion is sometimes pleasant, but always difficult nonetheless: Albert had been missing an arm, Finch had been in agony from mustard gas burns, and the worst of it… Davey had been the one to call Elmer’s time of death. It was horrible and he hopes to never see another familiar face within these walls.

He’s jerked out of his thoughts by the wail of an ambulance drawing near outside— his two-minute coffee break is over and it’s time to jump back into action. He has mere moments to collect himself before the doors are slamming open and his world is back to chaos.

“Shot in the abdomen, already infected,” says one of the travelling field nurses, as they roll the patient in and Davey hurries to match their stride. She’s got a strong French accent and he struggles to make sense of what she says next— something about a fever and gangrene and septic shock, which makes Davey incredibly nervous.

“He’s in good hands,” is all he can think to reply with, as the resident hospital nurses take over and the field nurses head back out. He’s still fumbling to get his gloves on as they enter the operating room and he’s suddenly the one in charge.

 _Debridement, antisepsis, pack the wound_. The three steps of trauma surgery are on a loop in Davey’s head as he takes in the situation.

“General anesthesia,” he orders. He can’t tell if the young man is actually conscious or not until a nurse’s hand gets too close to the bloody mess in the middle of his abdomen and there’s a quiet a groan of pain. “Start cutting his clothing away and cleaning around the wound.”

A fever. The field nurse had mentioned a fever, so he presses the back of his hand to the soldier’s forehead and winces at the heat that radiates from it. _Shit_.

That means the infection must be spreading, and she was probably right about sepsis, meaning as hard as they try, they might not be able to save him and—

He doesn’t even notice the patient’s eyes snapping open and staring up at him.

“Davey…?”

It’s hardly above a whisper and Davey almost doesn’t hear it. There’s a nurse about to put a mask over the soldier’s nose and mouth to put him under, but Davey quickly raises a hand, telling her to wait.

He watches the soldier’s face for a long moment, and then everything falls into place.

“ _Jack_ …” he whispers. “Oh god…”

Everyone has paused to watch them— his assistant and the two nurses— but Davey can’t stop himself from reaching out to carefully touch Jack’s face.

He’s changed— of course he has. They were hardly even adults yet when they last saw each other, and now they’re in their thirties. Jack had always liked his hair a bit long and messy on the top of his head, but he’s now got a close-cropped army cut, already greying just a little at the temples. His face is dirty and worn, but Davey can’t help but notice the smile-line wrinkles starting to form. At least that means he’s been happy in their decade apart.

This can’t be real. It _can’t_. There’s no way his first (and only) love is lying here on his goddamn operating table, dying of an infected bullet wound. Ten years apart and _this_ is how they reunite… it isn’t fair.

“Remember when I told you I was gonna be a doctor someday?” he finally says, because it’s all he can do to keep from crying. Jack looks entirely disoriented, but he manages to crack a confused almost-smile at that. “You’re gonna be okay, Jackie. I’ve got you.”

And then he nods to the nurse, that she can go ahead and put Jack under, and he shoots a stern look to his assistant, a young doctor-in-training, telling him to keep working on the initial sterilization of the area around the bullet hole.

He’s gonna save Jack Kelly’s life, god damn it.

-

The surgery, miraculously, is a success.

The infection was somewhat milder than it had initially seemed, and Davey had managed to cut away minimal amounts of tissue and leave Jack relatively intact. Sure, he’s got a gaping wound packed with antiseptic-soaked gauze, but he’s alive and breathing with working organs, so Davey supposes he did his job.

It’s now a matter of hoping that Jack’s body can fight off what remains of the infection without going into shock— there’s nothing any doctor can do for him now.

It takes a couple of days before Davey has a free moment long enough to figure out where Jack’s bed is and actually have time for a visit. His shifts are back-to-back-to-back and he hardly gets a wink of sleep, but he _finally_ manages to set aside some time in the afternoon for personal matters.

Jack is sleeping when Davey arrives. He’s in a room full of patients but his bed is tucked away in a corner, which at least affords them an illusion of privacy. Davey can’t help but check him for a fever, and his heart sinks a little when he realizes that Jack is burning up even worse than when he’d come in and sweating buckets. He carefully checks his pulse and winces at just how quick it is.

“Jack?” he whispers, trying to shake Jack awake as gently as possible. Slowly, his eyes peel open. “Hey… how are you feeling?”

Jack blinks several times and frowns in confusion, staring up at Davey. He seems out of it, as one might expect with being this sick and all. Davey can only hope he’ll at least be recognized.

“Dave…” Jack finally mumbles. “Am I dead? Are you… are you an angel?”

Davey can’t help but laugh softly as he takes a knee to get down closer to Jack’s level.

“No, no, it’s really me. You’re in the hospital— you got hurt pretty bad out there. Not really the best place to run into each other after all this time, is it?”

Jack sort of laughs, but doesn’t seem to have the energy for it. He smiles, at least, and Davey feels just as smitten as he did when he was seventeen.

“I’ve missed you,” sighs Jack, reaching weakly for Davey’s hand. He speaks slowly and somewhat slurred, but at least he’s conscious. “You… you said you were gonna be a doctor. Look at you— smart fella, I always knew it.”

There’s a lump in Davey’s throat as he takes Jack’s hand— it’s cold, another sign that his body isn’t handling the infection well.

“Look at _you_ ,” replies Davey, trying to keep things light. “A captain in the army. I suppose it can’t be that different from leading a band of newsboys, can it?”

Another almost-laugh from Jack. He can barely keep his eyes open and it makes Davey want to break down crying.

This isn’t _fair_. For ten years, he’d imagined all the ways that he and Jack might find each other again someday. None of them involved Jack _dying_. This isn’t how it was meant to go. They were supposed to be _happy._

“Are you sad?” asks Jack, after a moment. He squeezes Davey’s hand gently. “Just ‘cause it ain’t how we pictured it… ‘least we still found each other. I knew we would.”

Davey can’t stop himself from crying.

“I love you,” he whispers, so low it’s barely audible. “Forever, Jackie. I’m always yours.”

Jack’s eyes are falling closed now, but he hums a little and nods as he rubs his thumb over the back of Davey’s hand.

“Love you,” he finally replies, before giving in and letting himself settle back into sleep.

This has to be it— Davey figures he made it just in time. If he’d delayed his visit even an hour, he probably wouldn’t have been able to see him.

He can’t watch it happen, so he pushes himself back up to his feet and wipes the tears from his eyes. He does a round of checking in with and making conversation with all the other patients in the room. He might be crying on the inside, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t have the best bedside manner of any doctor he knows.

Sure enough, when he circles back to Jack, he has to take his pocket watch out and bring a nurse over as a witness so he can call time.

When he met Jack, all those years ago, he never imagined he’d be the one signing his death certificate, but life has a funny way of kicking you in the ass, doesn’t it?

Well… like Jack said, at least they found each other. He always knew they would

**Author's Note:**

> so like. i’m sorry 
> 
> hit my line on tumblr @thefactsofthematter with more requests if you want, i’m a little slow at writing but they usually eventually get done :)


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